Genesis as a typically human development of expressing and accounting
for personal life will be discussed in this lecture as a process of human cognition.
Historically we are well acquainted with the Gestalt circle of 'genesis and cognition'
resp. 'movement and perception' (V. WEIZSÄCKER) as a pathic manifestation in
the development of European culture. Nonetheless we are not too eager to envisage
problems of genesis clearly and enthusiastically as problems of cognition and -
vice versa - problems of cognition as problems of genesis. This might well be due
to the fact that we sense a basic pattern of human passion hidden in this tragic
feed-back as well as man's potential and fate directed to both bonding and uniqueness.
More and more distinctly the current discussion on psychotherapy, the competition
between different theories on the mind-body problem is opening a way to a revision
of 'Eros', the classical notion of cognition. In psychotherapy there is a more concrete
correspondence between theory of science and method of cognition than in other disciplines;
this is due to the fact that in psychotherapy as a science the issue of examination
is nothing else than man himself as a cognizant, suffering, passionate being. Two
classical ideas are connected to this postulate and - from the point of view of
psychotherapy - result in a revision of the notion of cognition:
1. The idea of oneness resp. unity of human cognition:
Cognition is passionate integration of body, mind and soul. Cognition requires uniting
laws, rules and limitations of corporeal reality with all the potentiality of openness,
freedom and autonomy of mind and the pathic energy of psyche. The classical oneness
of cognition and eros is visible in this idea.
Where this pathic unity is not achieved we speak of disease, crisis and illness.
2. The idea of a complemental methodology
Cognition means to integrate, reflect upon and transcend all primary methods of
cognition. According to present-day state of science-theoretical discussion there
are four primary methods of cognition: the phenomenological, the dialectic, the
empiric-analytical, and the hermeneutic method (H. SEIFFERT, R. LAY, R. VOGT, P.
HAHN). Each of these methods turns out to be a specific way to clarify a specific
temporal and spatial dimension of human existence.
Cognition - understood as opening a path to freedom and responsibility of man -
therefore acquires a specific meaning: oneness of phenomenologically-timeless clarification
of existence, dialectical comprehension of the subject in the here and now and empiric-analytical
specification of the object, directed to a hermeneutic general interpretation.
Problems of genesis emerge where the development of specific methods of cognition
or the integration with other methods of cognition is neglected. A one-sided or
too narrow view of oneself and the world (as problems of autistic cognition) results
in problems of genesis. In all suffering, crises and illness we envisage this problem
of personal cognition as a problem of genesis and an appeal to responsibility.
GEBSATTEL understood illness as an inhibition of genesis. I propose to distinguish
and pathically adjoin illnesses according to the following methods of cognition:
Anthropological distinction of illnesses
Dimensions of being - Dimensions of cognition
1. Existence - Phenomenological method of cognition
2. Structure - Dialectic method of cognition
3. Constitution - Empiric-analytical method of cognition
4. Function - Hermeneutic method of cognition
Ilness as an eruption of - not yet accounted for - human creativity will continue
to be an inhibition of genesis untill the grievance formulated by this illness is
recognized and thereby becomes open for taking responsibility. Mastering illness
can be understood as human genesis; it requires to integrate corporeal, psychical
and mental motion (unsettling) and painful perception in the direction of consistent
cognition. It is interesting that at this point the knowledge of classical philosophy
and the views of modern medical research on the immune system are converging.
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